"A poor person never gave me a job!"

jacee · September 8, 2012

This isn't entirely true either. Plenty of students, especially the good ones, end up with scholarships, bursaries, and awards that are a sort of income. Many also work part-time jobs while going to college, sometimes on campus even. Graduate students at my university were unionized. I think nowadays they make nearly $23/hr as research asssistants and teaching assistants. Graduates aside, students rarely make $0 income.

Just to clarify ... grad students are limited to working 10 hours a week, I think.

blueblood · September 8, 2012

That's right. Flood the market with labour and the west would be more booming. Everyone would be getting paid even more too.

considering the high demand for our products and the desperate labour shortage out here, there's room for people, not to mention all the spinoff businesses/services needed to take care of all those people/industry. You guys don't have the growth potential like we do. theres a difference.

blueblood · September 8, 2012

A country with no art & culture. What a wonderful world.

A better world than a country with no industry

dre · September 8, 2012

I dunno, a dynamic program could be implemented that incentivizes certain degrees right away based on market conditions, modifying graduation numbers within as little as 4-6 years. It'd have to be automatic, with the funding for these incentives already in place, and universities automatically looking at job data and responding at the start of each school year. 4-6 years out is a lot more possible to predict.

Seems optimistic to me, but Im not against the idea. Remember though... these companies have a shortage of engineers not engineering grads. Those are two completely different things. They would probably rather have immigrants with experience than Canadian college grads.

cybercoma · September 8, 2012

Just to clarify ... grad students are limited to working 10 hours a week, I think.

It depends on their funding source, but yeah.

Michael Hardner · September 9, 2012

But how many do we need, and why should the government not preferentially fund a degree that is likely to prepare someone for a job which pays 5x more lifetime taxes (for example)? Should the government not care about ROI when deciding how to spend money in education? The return on the investment is very important when we talk about other government expenditures, such as infrastructure, research, etc; why not in education?

Is "very important" ? To whom ? Expenditures seem to be driven by politics to me. Agriculture is subsidized, but manufacturing isn't. Culture is protected, but high tech isn't.

And healthcare spending, defence spending goes on without much attention paid.

I honestly don't know how these things are decided - likely what the market will bear.

EDITED TO ADD: If the government was careful about these things, wouldn't they create agencies to move people out of crime or poverty ? They just throw a little money at those problem instead.

There are many examples of thoughtless spending that could be directed towards helping people. Defence strikes me as something that could be looked at before defunding liberal arts.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Michael Hardner

Bonam · September 9, 2012

Is "very important" ? To whom ? Expenditures seem to be driven by politics to me. Agriculture is subsidized, but manufacturing isn't. Culture is protected, but high tech isn't.

And healthcare spending, defence spending goes on without much attention paid.

I honestly don't know how these things are decided - likely what the market will bear.

EDITED TO ADD: If the government was careful about these things, wouldn't they create agencies to move people out of crime or poverty ? They just throw a little money at those problem instead.

There are many examples of thoughtless spending that could be directed towards helping people. Defence strikes me as something that could be looked at before defunding liberal arts.

Well if you believe government spending is this thoughtless and inefficient, perhaps it shouldn't be in charge of managing higher education funding at all (funding priorities between defense, healthcare, crime, etc, are topics for separate threads)? Perhaps it should give employers a tax cut, for example, and mandate that the money saved in this tax cut be given by these employers to university programs of their choice. That way the market will decide what degrees are funded, and the government will be out of it completely.

Bonam · September 9, 2012

Seems optimistic to me, but Im not against the idea. Remember though... these companies have a shortage of engineers not engineering grads. Those are two completely different things. They would probably rather have immigrants with experience than Canadian college grads.

In my experience, companies actually love to hire engineers right out of school. They can pay a fresh graduate a lot less than a seasoned engineer, and they can train them to do exactly what they want in the way they want, rather than having to deal with someone that has their own way of doing things and may be slow or reluctant to change. And, as an added bonus, a fresh graduate is a lot more likely to be willing, or even eager, to work extra hours, to learn new things, to benefit from constructive criticism, etc.

dre · September 9, 2012

In my experience, companies actually love to hire engineers right out of school. They can pay a fresh graduate a lot less than a seasoned engineer, and they can train them to do exactly what they want in the way they want, rather than having to deal with someone that has their own way of doing things and may be slow or reluctant to change. And, as an added bonus, a fresh graduate is a lot more likely to be willing, or even eager, to work extra hours, to learn new things, to benefit from constructive criticism, etc.

Well I hire engineers actually and I wont touch grads if I have a choice, and just about any company Iv ever heard of would rather have someone with experience. The ONLY good thing about picking a fresh grad is that they will work for beans. But its not worth it because you just have no clue what you are getting. They arent engineers yet, they are students.

Bonam · September 9, 2012

Well I hire engineers actually and I wont touch grads if I have a choice, and just about any company Iv ever heard of would rather have someone with experience. The ONLY good thing about picking a fresh grad is that they will work for beans. But its not worth it because you just have no clue what you are getting. They arent engineers yet, they are students.

What kind of engineers do you hire? I work at an R&D startup company, and I've been involved in hiring a few now as well. And every single technical person we've hired (besides the founders) has been fresh out of school. Almost all have turned out very well.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Bonam

dre · September 9, 2012

What kind of engineers do you hire? I work at an R&D startup company, and I've been involved in hiring a few now as well. And every single technical person we've hired (besides the founders) has been fresh out of school. Almost all have turned out very well.

All computer software, and computer hardware. Im not saying you cant get bright people, but they still need so much on the job training. For a junior position thats fine, but If I want someone good I find guys with at least 5 years of experience, call their references, and then brainbench them.

Edited September 9, 2012 by dre

Bonam · September 9, 2012

All computer software, and computer hardware.

I could see how it'd be a bit different for software engineers and dealing with standardized things like computer hardware. We do a random assortment of things from pulsed power supplies, diagnostics to support fusion R&D, small scale space electric propulsion systems, etc, and every one of our contracts is for some niche one-off item.

Im not saying you cant get bright people, but they still need so much on the job training. For a junior position thats fine, but If I want someone good I find guys with at least 5 years of experience, call their references, and then brainbench them.

Fitting into the company culture and being willing and quick to learn things from people at the company, along with having a solid foundation in the relevant fundamentals, is what we usually look for the most. Our approach is usually to hire people on as interns during the summer before/after their senior year, and that gives us ~3 months to see if they are any good. Then the ones that are good get hired on full time. On the job training, in our case, would be required for someone experienced regardless, since what we do is so unique.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Bonam

dre · September 9, 2012

I could see how it'd be a bit different for software engineers and dealing with standardized things like computer hardware. We do a random assortment of things from pulsed power supplies, diagnostics to support fusion R&D, small scale space electric propulsion systems, etc, and every one of our contracts is for some niche one-off item.

Yeah, your situation sounds pretty unique though. Look... I dont wanna bash students, everyone has to start somewhere. But I basically just view them as interns. Its a whole lot of work to bring them up to speed in any field, and for the first couple of years you arent going to get a whole lot out of them. But fair enough... thats why they work for less.

Bonam · September 9, 2012

Yeah, your situation sounds pretty unique though. Look... I dont wanna bash students, everyone has to start somewhere. But I basically just view them as interns. Its a whole lot of work to bring them up to speed in any field, and for the first couple of years you arent going to get a whole lot out of them. But fair enough... thats why they work for less.

I think "first couple of years" is a drastic exaggeration. We usually have people very productive within 6 months or so. We tend to push them pretty hard though, and our senior research scientist/CTO tends to work very closely with them to bring them up to speed as quickly as possible. I started here myself just last March, fresh out of school (PhD) also, and now I'm basically doing the bulk of the technical and design work on several projects, and did all the experimental work on another project that recently got funded for additional research.

I think a company that takes several years to bring someone up to being productive is doing it wrong. Now, I know people that work at giant companies like Boeing, and yeah, they basically don't do anything for the first 2-3 years, but that's not because they can't, it's because the company doesn't push them or expect anything of them.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Bonam

Michael Hardner · September 9, 2012

A better world than a country with no industry

Very important point.

What does our country require ? Since we have reduced industry, we need far fewer mechanical engineers and more people who can speak clearly, who can write, and provide general knowledge in the internet age.

Michael Hardner · September 9, 2012

Well if you believe government spending is this thoughtless and inefficient, perhaps it shouldn't be in charge of managing higher education funding at all

Perhaps. Or perhaps we should be having more discussions like this in all domains of government activity.

We've had no government involvement, and thoughtless government involvement... let's try for thoughtful and engaged public involvement next.

Bonam · September 9, 2012

Perhaps. Or perhaps we should be having more discussions like this in all domains of government activity.

We've had no government involvement, and thoughtless government involvement... let's try for thoughtful and engaged public involvement next.

Works for me...

CPCFTW · September 9, 2012

Very important point.

What does our country require ? Since we have reduced industry, we need far fewer mechanical engineers and more people who can speak clearly, who can write, and provide general knowledge in the internet age.

Well the obvious question to ask is, do you need a $30,000 degree to speak clearly, write, and provide general knowledge?

But that is not at all what we need. The biggest driver of our economy in services is business services. Business services generally hire people with business, and accounting degrees, not BAs. The only people hiring BAs is the government which gets most of its revenue from the work of the engineers/BSc's/labourers in the primary sector, and the business/finance grads in the business services sector that finances the primary sector.

Bonam · September 9, 2012

What does our country require ? Since we have reduced industry, we need far fewer mechanical engineers and more people who can speak clearly, who can write, and provide general knowledge in the internet age.

We need people who can speak clearly, write, and "provide knowledge" with a deep understanding of various specific fields related to our economy. Whether it's tourism, forestry, business, transportation, software, robotics, economics, etc, it is a lot easier to train a specialist in one of these fields to communicate effectively than to train a generalist arts major to be knowledgeable about these fields.

We need entrepreneurs who can create jobs, and most new businesses are founded on innovation, by people who can use both the creative side of their mind to come up with new ideas, but have the technical know-how to put their ideas into practice.

Edited September 9, 2012 by Bonam

Michael Hardner · September 10, 2012

Well the obvious question to ask is, do you need a $30,000 degree to speak clearly, write, and provide general knowledge?

But that is not at all what we need. The biggest driver of our economy in services is business services. Business services generally hire people with business, and accounting degrees, not BAs. The only people hiring BAs is the government which gets most of its revenue from the work of the engineers/BSc's/labourers in the primary sector, and the business/finance grads in the business services sector that finances the primary sector.

Yes, four years of writing does improve your skills.

Check Bonam's link and you'll see you're wrong - accounting is on the lower end of degrees in his list.

Michael Hardner · September 10, 2012

... it is a lot easier to train a specialist in one of these fields to communicate effectively than to train a generalist arts major to be knowledgeable about these fields.

We need entrepreneurs who can create jobs, and most new businesses are founded on innovation, by people who can use both the creative side of their mind to come up with new ideas, but have the technical know-how to put their ideas into practice.

On both of these points, there has aleady been discussion (Steve Jobs, apprentice programs) and good points made to the contrary.

CPCFTW · September 10, 2012

Yes, four years of writing does improve your skills.

Check Bonam's link and you'll see you're wrong - accounting is on the lower end of degrees in his list.

Accounting is on the lower end of salary scales.... What does that have to do with what I said?

Most accountants are employed by the private sector, so their income actually contributes to the economy and tax revenue.. unlike most arts grads who are usually employed by the public sector.

The_Squid · September 10, 2012

unlike most arts grads who are usually employed by the public sector.

Quite a claim.... Let's see a reference for that stat please.

cybercoma · September 10, 2012

Accounting is on the lower end of salary scales.... What does that have to do with what I said?

Most accountants are employed by the private sector, so their income actually contributes to the economy and tax revenue.. unlike most arts grads who are usually employed by the public sector.

You do know the public sector and the third sector serve a purpose, right? Their purpose even contributes to the economy most of the time. Not only does the work they do help with the economy, but you act like they take their paychecks and bury them in their backyards.

CPCFTW · September 10, 2012

You do know the public sector and the third sector serve a purpose, right? Their purpose even contributes to the economy most of the time. Not only does the work they do help with the economy, but you act like they take their paychecks and bury them in their backyards.

Who cares what they do with their paycheque, it's just tax money taken from the people who actually create wealth.